New Zealand has announced its most sweeping measures to tackle climate change and will push to increase sales of electric vehicles.
The small country has ambitions to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050 and expects 30 per cent of its light vehicle fleet to be all-electric by 2035. New Zealand also aims to reduce total kilometers driven by light vehicles by 20 per cent over the coming 13 years.
As part of the plan, New Zealand’s government will allocate NZ$569 million ($357 million) on a trial program to help pay lower-income families to ditch their old combustion engine vehicles in favor of hybrid or all-electric alternatives. Details of this plan will be finalized over the coming months.
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Minister of transport Michael Wood revealed that over NZ$1.2 billion ($757 million) has been allocated towards the nation’s plans to make its transport sector more environmentally friendly. This will include the establishment of greener bus fleets, improved cycleways and walkways, and more frequent trains.
“This is a landmark day in our transition to a low emissions future,” Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said in a statement. “We’ve all seen recent reports on sea-level rise and its impact right here in New Zealand. We cannot leave the issue of climate change until it’s too late to fix.”
The government has also confirmed that it will increase investments in electric vehicle charging infrastructure and provide a clean vehicle discount to encourage the purchase of low-emission vehicles.
The chair of the climate change commission, Rod Carr, told The Guardian that the plan to subsidize the purchase of new EVs is a good idea but needs to be well-designed.
“The evidence overseas as I understand it is that scrappage schemes as implemented overseas have been relatively expensive ways of reducing emissions,” he said. “But that depends entirely on how they’re targeted and who gets the benefit and what the benefit is used for.”
